on the lower end of the hearing spectrum, male atlantic haddock circle their territory for hours, trying to attract mates using distinctive “knocks.”

these sounds paint a picture of a biodiverse and teeming marine ecosystem. but humans are destroying it.

the issue of sound

heather spence, ph.d., a composer and marine science advisor for the u.s. department of energy, has dedicated her life to researching the effects of human-caused noise pollution on marine life. through sound, she says, a trained specialist can determine the health of a marine ecosystem.

“[the sounds] transport you because you’ve got all of these textures that have layers of sound going on, like the snapping shrimp,” said spence in a phone call. “but if you listen more, you can hear some subtle sounds from fish and spiny lobsters.”

through her acoustic monitoring surveys in cancun, mexico, spence found that recreational boaters would overpower or “mask” the animals’ sounds when they were present.

“just masking can make it so they can’t hear each other or communicate an alarm signal, or they can’t find each other to mate,” spence said. “so, it can be a pretty major deal.”

human-produced noise pollution of the ocean goes far beyond recreational boating. there are also the shipping vessels that connect a complex global transoceanic network, which supports 80% of global trade, according to the united nations.

experts say vessel noise can be heard for miles. it causes “measurable stress,” and it disrupts the ability of animals to evaluate shelter for safety. its low frequency makes such noise especially detrimental, falling precisely in the range in which many marine organisms hear and communicate, according to dave hudson, ph.d.

hudson is the founder of remote ecologist, a nonprofit in connecticut focusing on aquatic system stressors. in january, he conducted a study about the effects of vessel noise and sonar on american lobster and blue crab. these two animals support the livelihoods of thousands of commercial fishermen in new england.

hudson said that his study showed that boat noise induces stress in blue crabs, reducing their competitiveness for food and causing them to exhibit defensive behaviors.

“so extrapolation of work that we did on these two crustaceans probably tells me a lot about how other crabs in the area would be affected,” said hudson in a phone call. “other lobsters would be affected in places like europe and australia and others throughout the caribbean with spiny lobsters.”

subjecting an animal to boat noise can hurt their ability to survive. a wildlife conservation society study looking at the increased presence of whales in the new york bay said that sounds could interfere with migration, mating, and prey detection.

funding a response

the ambient noise level in the oceans has increased by as much as 12 decibels over the last 30 years, according to a source hudson cited in his paper. noise control site iacacoustics says that this increase is the equivalent of someone breathing in a person’s ear.

to address these problems, more research is needed on how noise impacts marine life, as indicated by a plethora of studies, including hudson’s and spence’s. both scientists said that the biggest obstacle is money, 

“i do think that the reason why it is or is not in connecticut is more about funding,” hudson said. “we’ve thrown around some ideas to try some in situ work in connecticut, but it just hasn’t been funded yet.”

in 2021, the national oceanic and atmospheric administration compiled a “ocean noise strategy,” doctrine, which pushed for funding of acoustic monitoring and spreading awareness of ocean soundscapes.

communicating through music

marine acoustic ecology can seem inaccessible to a normal person because of the time it takes to learn about it. many marine conservation efforts, such as connecticut’s “blue plan” ignore it altogether. the blue plan uses data collected on the long island sound’s natural resources to inform policies on marine planning in that area.

but enticing the public into learning about the field may require more than hard data. that’s where spence’s unique fusion of music and biology can come in. for example, she composed “night fish,” a song made up of reef recordings, string instruments, and percussive elements of whale song.

“i think what’s interesting is that my musical training led me to explore not just the frequency of fish sounds, but also other parameters, like the complexity of the rhythms of the sounds that they made, which resulted in much more interesting analysis,” spence said.

it’s about making oceanic soundscapes accessible, but we don’t live underwater, and we haven’t evolved the ability to hear the rich diversity of marine sounds. that makes conservation efforts difficult, spence says.

with spence’s “ocean world of sound 30 day challenge” playlist, a person can listen to a recording of the ocean every day for a month and dive into the world of underwater sound.

“one of the best ways to get people to understand is for them to actually experience it themselves,” spence said. “if you’re noticing things in your own environment that you feel something about, then you can extrapolate that to an ocean environment, which can feel alien.”

this is a good way for people to start empathizing with marine life. but hudson emphasized the importance of discussing the environmental costs of something as ubiquitous as shipping.

what kind of world do we want?

“you’re throwing things on one side of the world, then putting them in a can, and then bringing them back to the same side,” hudson said. “that doesn’t make sense. and that produces noise the whole way and uses up resources.”

spence also weighed in on the issue, emphasizing the importance of reducing the intentional sound of motors, which lose energy in the form of noise.

what is the price of environmental destruction? human suffering and economic loss, according to hudson.

but he still has hope. hudson said that people can “start somewhere small” like volunteering in an academic laboratory or planting grasses in marshes. one person can transform into 10,000 people making a difference in the world. it’s about paying attention to the environment and not giving up.

“we need to start imagining [and asking ourselves] what the future is going to sound like above and under water,” spence said.

“what do we want our future to sound like and how do we get there?”

this article has been republished with additional photos. 

in this podcast, planet 世界杯欧洲预选赛免费直播 katie perkins sits down with asheley landrum, ph.d., a media psychologist and associate professor of science communication in the college of media & communication at texas tech university, to find out the answers to these questions and more. listen in for a short deep dive into the research surrounding science communication and why we, as communicators, should be paying attention to it.

full transcript below:

asheley landrum (00:00:04) i study sort of how science is communicated through the whole system of science, scientist to scientist, scientist to public science through intermediaries like journalists, museums, and other types like that.  

katie perkins (00:00:19) my name is katie perkins, planet 世界杯欧洲预选赛免费直播 from texas tech university, and today we’re gonna dive into the science behind scientific communication. joining me is dr. ashley landrum, a media psychologist and associate professor of science communication in the college of media and communication at texas tech university. her research investigates how values and worldviews influence people’s selection and processing of science media. so i have with me dr. ashley landrum, thank you so much for joining me today! i went through a lot of your research and i found a lot of it so interesting. and one of them i wanted to talk about was, you have an article that talks about conspiracy mentality and the denial of science. so can you tell me a little bit more about why the public tends to disagree with the science that they read in the media?  

asheley landrum (00:01:10) it is not that every issue of science is rejected by the public, or any one issue of science is rejected by the whole public. different groups of people are more receptive to messages of science about different topics depending on their own worldviews, their values, and their belief systems. so for example, we might see or hear about when we’re growing up that there are people who reject the idea of human-caused global climate change because it conflicts with their deeply held political beliefs or with the beliefs of groups that they are affiliated with or things that are important or core to their identity. conspiracy mentality is the other sort of element of that. when people are more prone to distrusting authorities or institutions, maybe they have full reason to distrust based on some things that happen in their background or things that they’ve read about.  but when you’re more open to, in some senses, distrusting authorities and institutions, it makes it a lot easier to believe that they would engage in certain types of conspiracies. so that government agencies would hush or hide or cover things up. whereas people who are less likely to have that sort of worldview or are more trusting of authorities and institutions, they’re less likely to sort of buy into some of the conspiracy theories that exist. so there are sort of several different worldviews and beliefs that can contribute to rejecting any one specific point of science. but the public as a whole generally accepts most of what science tells us. we just tend to focus on the ones that aren’t.  

katie perkins (00:02:53) do you think that journalists can play a role in changing those people that tend to reject science? or do you think that those beliefs are so deeply held that it’s gonna be very difficult for us to talk to them in a way that will hopefully change their mind?

asheley landrum (00:03:06) so in my view, it’s, it’s hard to say that journalists could make it better, but they could at least not make it worse. and so, i think that regardless of your profession, right, everybody in this world has beliefs. they have a worldview. they have, you know, a system of values that influence the way that they see the world. if journalists are using their platform in a way to try to stick it to certain populations, that could only make the problem worse. so we had a study that i collaborated with dan kahan and kathleen hall jamieson, and it was out of the annenberg public policy center at the university of pennsylvania. we showed that journalists could end up sort of creating a politically polarized environment over the issue of the zika virus simply by framing that study as an issue connected to one that is politically charged.  so we had sort of three different message groups that people were randomly assigned into. they could have just read a public health message about zika. we had a second message that had that public health message, but then connected the issue to climate change that said something like, if you’re concerned about zika, you should also be concerned about climate change because… and then we had a third condition that said, if you’re concerned about zika, you should be concerned about immigration because we have people immigrating to areas of the us from areas where it is habitable for these mosquitoes. and you know, the virus is, is bloodborne, sexually transmitted, and mosquito-transmitted. so we showed that in the public health condition, regardless of your political beliefs, you generally were concerned about zika. you believed the science that was presented. but in the condition where we presented it and tied it to climate change, we found that people who were more politically conservative were more likely to say, well, maybe i’m not that concerned about zika. and you know, we hear that a lot. “oh, you know, political conservatives reject science.” well, we also made liberals reject science because then in the third condition where we had attached it to immigration, then we had people who are more on the progressive or liberal side of the political spectrum saying, “oh, well maybe zika’s not that big of a deal and i don’t believe that it causes microcephaly.” so we could, you know, basically by tying it to an issue that’s already politically charged. we ended up polarizing that issue when it wasn’t one that was polarized before. and we refer to that as polluting the science communication environment. but when i’ve talked to journalists, i think many of the journalists that i’ve talked to think of themselves as storytellers or you know, artists or their sharing perspectives. and when i brought this up at a panel at a conference where we were talking to some science journalists and i said, to what extent are you paying attention to science com research or having it inform, you know, the way you communicate science so you can communicate more strategically right?  what we ended up finding or what those journalists told us was, well, it’s not our job to do that. and i was like, “oh, okay.” i had used that example that i just shared with you as the example when they were asking me like, “wait, i don’t understand what you’re talking about. what do you mean pay attention to science com research?” and i was like, “oh, we did this thing.” you know, one of the potential implications coming from this recognizing it’s one study, right, is that science communicators could inadvertently pollute the science communication environment by attaching something that’s not embedded with political meaning to something that is. 

katie perkins (00:06:36) i think that is just a really great example of why we need to, you know, look into the research that you’re doing and understand the science behind scientific communication, like you said earlier, because we play a big role in how the public perceives it and we can really be super divisive as journalists in scientific communication. 

asheley landrum (00:06:54) well one of the other things that we’ve talked about before is the way science journalists are trained compared to other types of journalists, and i can’t remember the exact numbers, but one of the researchers in science com was sort of counting and published the number of actual people who are hired as science journalists and how much it’s decreased over the past decade or even longer. instead, the people who are covering science are the ones who are covering politics or the ones that are covering other issues. and so they’re looking at science through that political lens already that can make – that can kind of complicate the issue, right? because they’re already kind of coming at it from this political perspective. and so the norms of communicating science as a journalist may need to be different than the norms of communicating politics or the norms of communicating, you know, economics or other types of issues. and when colleagues of mine and i do presentations on, you know, tips for communicating science and more frequently we do these with scientists, but these are also true for actual professional communicators. one of our first things is to really know what your goal is. and that seems silly because people know what their goal is, but do they? you know, it’s like, scientists might say, “well my goal right, is to communicate my science”. it’s like, okay, well if your goal is to communicate your science so that members of the public understand it, then you need to strategically design that message in order to do that. your goal might actually be to get people to think like you do – and that is a goal, but that’s a different one, from getting the public to understand it.  

katie perkins (00:08:36) i wanna talk a little bit more about your flat earth research. so you have a research article called ‘flat smacked converting to flat earthism’. and you talk about the role that youtube played in converting flat earthers. so what has your experience been in how different social media platforms contribute to how people accept science or like, digest theories that are controversial, things like that? 

asheley landrum (00:08:58) you know, social media platforms are communities now. some of them have a bunch of like, are broader used, especially at the beginning. i remember in its heyday, everybody was on facebook regardless of your age. you know, my grandmother who is 80 years old created a facebook page. you know, so you, you have pretty diverse audiences, but as platforms age or as there are more available, then you end up having different communities on them. on youtube, there’s a community of conspiracy theorists sharing videos about any conspiracy theory that you can think of. from there, it was either eric dubay or somebody around the same time who had sort of created a flat earth video sort of making an argument for flat earth. what was interesting is that almost everybody that we talked to said that they were first exposed to the flat earth conspiracy from watching videos on youtube. the only exceptions were people whose family members did and then introduced them to it. so it started off on youtube and then came off the platform to start bringing in family members and friends of those who are on youtube. they would start by watching conspiracy videos and then they would be suggested other conspiracy videos. and when they would present these facts, and i’m using quotes, air quotes there, right, “the facts of flat earth” to other people, they called it getting flat smacked because you’re just smacked with all this information at once. and so that’s where the title of that came from. and if you do watch eric dubay’s video, it’s like 200 proof that the earth is not a spinning ball or something like that. i think it’s been pulled off of youtube a bunch of times. but if you watch it, you’ll see it’s just like sort of argument after argument, and they’re so fast that you don’t really have, if you’re just watching it in real-time, you don’t have time to actually critically evaluate it. you just feel like you’re being overwhelmed with information that’s like, wow, like this is, this seems really legit when it’s not at all  

katie perkins (00:10:45) and so, is that kind of how you see that misinformation coming in over social media platforms regarding scientific communication? it just comes at you so fast that you don’t have time?

asheley landrum (00:10:55) so some cases, so that was, i mean that was the case with that. i think in addition to that, and probably more frequently for other types of science communication on platforms, things through memes or articles or shared stories. it’s people who are seeing misinformation that resonates with their worldview. so again, this is a, it’s an all-person thing. the acceptance of misinformation or acting in a political way is not something that’s true only for specific populations. it’s true of all populations. and the question is, is it something that’s gonna interact with your values or beliefs in a way that’s gonna make you respond in a way that’s not consistent with the evidence from science?  

katie perkins (00:11:32) so do you think that there is a way to not make issues like these political or is it just in their nature that in science media the science is gonna get polluted like you said earlier by political agendas?  

asheley landrum (00:11:45) right. so we can try to do what we can, we can’t control what everyone in the world says. and so, you know, political actors are gonna probably step in at some point and make things political. but we can at least try to not, you know, we can ask communication professionals who are doing this for a living to not make the problem worse. and it’s not, like i said, it’s not always predictable, it’s not always something we can stop. but there are circumstances where we know based on prior work, based on history, how something can happen. so, you know, we can do what we can, but once it’s like, once it’s really polarized like climate change, it’s very hard to come back from that without really strong messaging from a variety of different sources that tries to counteract that. and only over time, so trying to get younger generations to stop seeing climate change as a political issue and instead as a global and a human one.  

katie perkins (00:12:46) the last thing i have is, i was reading your most recent article about awe-inspiring scientific communication. could you tell us just a little bit more about awe and how it affects people?  

asheley landrum (00:12:56) yes. well, so we don’t know yet, right? so this is actually really exciting work. the paper you were referring to is one that we were looking at to see if we could measure people’s experiences of awe when engaging with, and in this case, it was reading science news stories and the stories that were, like several of them were written by ed yong because he writes in a very awe-inspiring way. but you know, other types of stories as well to see if we can measure awe. then the later goal will be to see – is this a style or a way of writing that might help increase openness to accepting science? but the aforementioned graduate student i told you about alex olshansky, his dissertation is also looking at how experiences of awe might limit people’s ability to counter-argue when being confronted with things like conspiracy theories.  

so if you are, if you are reading about a conspiracy theory or if you’re watching a video which seems to be more, more frequently the case and you have this experience of awe, is it taking more of your cognitive resources away from then being able to question what it is that you’re, that you’re watching? and it’s sort of a resource allocation question. and he has not done his analysis yet, but all of his data is collected. so it could have, it could be a double-edged sword, right? it could be a mechanism through which to get people excited and engaged with science, but it could also be a mechanism through which misinformation is spread.  

katie perkins (00:14:25) that was all super, super interesting and i think is really gonna interest a lot of people on planet forward. so yeah, just thank you so much for joining me today!

asheley landrum (00:14:33) thank you for having me.

established in 1991, the tbep is a product of the national estuary program as a part of the clean water act of 1987. the organization’s goal is “to build partnerships to restore and protect tampa bay through implementation of a scientifically sound, community based management plan.” this plan is funded by the bay mini-grant program, which disperses funding to organizations in the community whose projects work to protect the environment of tampa bay. 

the money for these grants comes from purchases of specialty “tarpon tag” license plates which depict the famous tampa bay tarpon, a highly prized game fish common to the gulf of mexico. 

to gain a little more insight into the tbep and their community work, sheila scolaro, community programs scientist at the tbep, discusses several of the projects funded by the tarpon tag license plates and explains why community science is such an important part of tampa bay. 

this interview has been edited for length and clarity.

q: could you tell me a little bit about yourself and your background?

a: my name is sheila scolaro. i’m the community program scientist for the tampa bay estuary program. i’ve been with the estuary program for about two years. i am a florida native, from near the mouth of the manatee river/bradenton area. i grew up snorkeling and fishing the grass flats of that area, and i remember being really young and kind of becoming really fascinated at the diversity of life hiding just below the surface of the water.

so i knew that i was going to dedicate my career to protecting these sensitive estuarine habitats and coastal habitats, so that future generations would have the same opportunities to explore this amazing underwater world like i had. after i graduated from high school, i went to the university of florida and i studied plant science. and then from there, i got a job at the fish and wildlife research institute studying sea grasses, so i traveled all around the gulf of mexico studying seagrass and water quality. 

i worked at the fwc for about four years and then i ran the seagrass and water quality monitoring program for sarasota county. and now i am at the tampa bay estuary program where i coordinate our volunteer seagrass monitoring effort. and i help coordinate a lot of our community engagement activities.

q: so what got you interested in your current job that you have now? what led you there? 

a: to me, science is really important and management should be based on science, but there seems to be a disconnect between the scientists and the community. part of that issue is that we as scientists, we write in a lot of jargon. i wanted to try and be a bridge between the science and the community so that community members didn’t feel isolated. and they have the same knowledge that the scientists did.

q: could you explain a little bit about your role at the tbep?

a: i help to engage community members. we try to educate our science to the community members so that they can be more informed members of our community and to help them be better stewards of our environment. we have 3.8 million people that live in this region now, and a lot of them are from out of state. i know that most people came to florida because of the beauty of tampa bay, so they don’t intentionally want to do anything to hurt it – so we tried to help them be better stewards. 

some of the things that i do (are that) i manage our bay mini-grant program, which is a community program that’s funded by the “tarpon tag” or the tampa bay specialty license plate. it grants up to $5,000 that is offered to community organizations for projects that help to protect and restore tampa bay. i also coordinate a program which is called “give a day for the bay,” encouraging community members to get out and be part of tampa bay’s restoration story. 

q: what are some of the projects that you’ve been a part of over the past couple of years?

a: we have a lot of projects that we fund through a mini-grant program and through all of the tampa bay programs. so with the bay mini-grant program, we’ve tried to find anywhere from 20 to 25 projects a year. our goal is to fund about $100,000, so i’ve been involved in quite a few projects. the rain gardens are, i think, my favorite – we have quite a few of those. each year we have a request for projects that goes out in the summer and we try to highlight or prioritize a specific action which is basically one of our goals to implement. 

q: what exactly is a rain garden, and why is that your favorite type of project? 

a: rain gardens are areas that collect water and essentially slow water movement and allow for that water to percolate through the system. it pulls out all of the nutrients and contaminants in the water before it gets to tampa bay. as somebody who has focused a large part of their career on seagrasses, any project that improves water clarity or water quality is something that i like to be involved in… (it’s) an exciting project for me because it also gets people outside, gets people digging, digging in the dirt, which i think is really important – getting your hands on nature, feeling nature i think is important. and recognizing the beauty of florida native species.

q: what do you think is the importance of community management and community projects in this day and age?

a: i think it’s important to know a little bit about the history of tampa bay to kind of put the community in context and how important that community is to this area. in the early 1950s, tampa bay’s economy was booming and we were rapidly developing, but we had poor wastewater treatment, so we were discharging raw sewage directly into the bay. we had poor nutrient management, and we were just rapidly developing. we had algae blooms over almost the entire bay, but in the northern portions of the bay, the algae blooms were the worst.

by the 1980s, we lost about 70% of our sea grasses, which is a critical habitat for many of our fishes and wildlife species in the region and in the estuary. in about the 1970s, the community kind of stepped up and there was a community outcry. they basically joined forces and started this movement called “save the bay.” they were really the impetus for change in tampa bay. they demanded more from their representatives and they were the ones that kind of got the restoration started in this area.

without the community, the bay might not look the way that it does today. to me, the community members are still at the heart of our restoration story. so community is everything. you know, we’re the ones who live out here, we play out here. we’re the ones that have a large impact. and so if we can be better stewards of the area, even if it’s just our neighborhood, then it can have a pretty large impact on the estuary as a whole.

q: what are some of the impacts that you have personally seen through community programs like this? 

a: i think they have a big impact in the local communities. i mean, in this one park in gulfport we saw the implementation of one project and then another group was inspired by the project – the rain garden that was installed – and now they want to do another one and potentially there will be other spots that have rain gardens also. i think having those small community projects that are visible to the neighborhood, are inspiring to me, to other groups and to new locals and to tourists.

i will just say that we’ve gotten very comfortable lately (with) how beautiful tampa bay is. however, we’re seeing some major changes in the estuary. anecdotally… we’re getting reports of large scale macro algae blooms. we had harmful algae blooms in the northern part of the estuary from 2018 to 2020. we lost 16% of our seagrasses which is pretty substantial.

we’ve had two consecutive reporting years where we lost the grass, and we’re expecting another one…that’s concerning for us as bay managers.

what i would like to say to community members is that it’s time for us to once again come together as a community and recommit to protecting tampa bay because it took 30 years to restore the estuary and we don’t want to miss out or take for granted what those who came before us did. 

florida residents can get the specialty license plate for $17 a year, helping fund community projects around the tampa bay area, like the ones described by scolaro. for those who want to be more involved in the projects, visit the tampa bay estuary program website.

finding community organizations and ways to support them, like a license plate, can be great ways to take small steps toward building stronger community-based management.

unlock the mysteries of a real-life butterfly effect through the puzzling concept of ecoclimate teleconnections. get ready to dive deep into the theory behind how we communicate complex scientific topics.

ecoclimate teleconnection is a concept that sounds abstract, but refers to something that everyone experiences. teleconnections work like a river. the policies of people at the headwaters of a river impact the water not only in their vicinity, but downstream as well. although the people at the mouth of the river and the end of the river may never have had contact, one tangibly affected the other. that is the core concept of teleconnections and a telecoupled world. 

my guest, jose soto, ph.d., has a unique perspective. he ponders intentionally and cares deeply. he suggested that we write a poem together for this piece. sometimes, it is equally important to talk about the ways in which we understand science, rather than the science we don’t understand.

science is only one way of attempting to understand the world. soto posits that people’s experiences shape how they view the world. our worldview (or our “phenomena of reality”) then affects how we view science.  

to all listeners of this podcast, be curious. let that curiosity guide you as we find solutions for a brighter and more inclusive future.

full transcript below:

soto: [00:00:00] because it’s the cornerstone of science. “we don’t know” is the cornerstone of science. you may prove something is not wrong, but you’re never correct. you never prove something is right. it’s not wrong.

hughes: [00:00:20] wait, say that again? the cornerstone of science is that…

soto: [00:00:20] we don’t know.

hughes: [00:00:22] we don’t know. and you never truly prove something right. but you can prove that…

soto: [00:00:27] that its temporarily not wrong.

hughes: [00:00:30] it’s temporarily not wrong.

soto: [00:00:30] yes.

hughes: [00:00:33] as a science communicator and a practitioner of science, i spend a lot of time thinking about new scientific concepts and new ways to think about science. my friend and fellow researcher, dr. jose soto, joins me on a journey of exploring our curiosities in the field of science. unlock the mysteries and insights of the butterfly effect come to life, through the puzzling concept of ecoclimate teleconnections. and along the why, get ready to dive deep into the concepts and theory behind how we communicate something so complex like teleconnections.

soto: [00:01:12] i am very, very profoundly curious about many things, but and here’s again, i’m taking myself…

hughes: [00:01:17] here’s the “but.”

soto: [00:01:18] i’m taking myself into absurdity. there is a boundedness to my curiosity in the sense that the problem of what seems to be the most important question of our organism, this aspect of climate change in the anthropocene and what we want to be.

hughes: [00:01:37] that is the voice of dr. jose soto. he is an expert in applied economics, a creator of curious tangents and a writer of poetry. he comes from nogales, sonora, which is a border town 70 miles south of tucson. he came to the university of arizona in 2017 as an assistant professor to work on a project on ecoclimate teleconnections. dr. soto and i agreed on a metaphor for the mechanism of ecoclimate teleconnections. it’s like the butterfly effect. in the case of jose’s research, the ecological conditions of one place can affect the climate of another very, very far away. they’re connected despite the distance. his work specifically looks at how much the loss of forests in the western united states would affect temperature and precipitation on agriculture in the mississippi river basin.

hughes: [00:02:32] so what are jose’s current curiosities?

soto: [00:02:36] curiosity about folks’ understanding of seemingly esoteric concepts or fairly new concepts if that is what this ecoclimate teleconnections are. understanding how is it that we that we can understand that in a way that is communicable to others. to many folks from many diverse backgrounds. and not only backgrounds and cultural backgrounds, but also various points of view of intergenerational sort of understandings of questions that are complex.

hughes: [00:03:05] what was the what was the spark that drew jose soto to this project in this space at this time?

soto: [00:03:13] i stumble a lot in life. and i’ve done it so much in life that i get curious.

hughes: [00:03:20] so your research group studying ecoclimate teleconnections is super interdisciplinary. why is that important to you?

soto: [00:03:28] you could start seeing problems from many points of view. there is texture to problems that could only be understood from multiple points of view.

hughes: [00:03:39] this interdisciplinary team is combining two very complex models to try to understand teleconnections. one model is an earth systems model that predicts climate changes and variables like precipitation and temperature. the other is a partial equilibrium model that predicts land use change and economic welfare. what is complex, and perhaps strange, is that these predictive models can turn global scale changes in the west into very precise rain and temperature effects. then another model can take those hazy predictions and spit out how that change affects each u.s. county in dollars. i’ll let him continue to explain it in a way only he can.

soto: [00:04:20] yes, we can produce models that are, well, estimates on economic welfare and now… how is it that we present that estimation? that is, again, a bounded calculation on the climate modeling side. and that bounded calculation is being put into a giant model that is really cool, but it translates into into something that looks very concrete, which is dollar signs of economic surplus that is going to be put into this other model of very tangible things. but they only seem like that, in terms of the dollar signs perhaps. but in order for me to present that in perhaps a survey of preferences, and (ask) “would you understand that if we explain this to you?” how is it that we present them in the way that we are as transparent as we can (be)? so you take this sort of haziness of what i’m talking about, and then all of a sudden we have this sort of, perhaps a- what i’m anticipating- and what i’m very curious about, a cognitive dissonance between maybe trying to explain that haziness or that bounded calculation in this, although with as much caveats as we can, but also in a way that we are presenting the uncertainties.

hughes: [00:05:26] the haziness that jose’s referring to is the uncertainty that models have inherently. there’s a lot of error, complexity and variables that go into these kinds of models. jose’s role in the research team is to develop a survey to better understand how people understand teleconnections. jose is toying with the idea of being vulnerable with those he surveys and explaining that these models and even the scientists have uncertainties about their results. even though the science may be uncertain and the concepts quite hazy and difficult to grasp, they are still essential to communicate to people. jose’s team has narrowed down their guiding questions to the following two.

soto: [00:06:09] but would they get it?

hughes: [00:06:11] “it” is referring to teleconnections.

soto: [00:06:14] and would they want the government to do something about it?

hughes: [00:06:17] “they” is referring to the citizens of the united states.

soto: [00:06:20] how is it that we make something of this? something useful? there’s important questions. perhaps the most important question, which is this sort of perhaps climate change in the anthropocene. how is it that that this can become useful?

hughes: [00:06:34] the two of us always bob and weave in our conversations, but end up forming compelling connections between topics. at this point, we began talking about why the creation and interpretation of this survey jose’s creating may not be as simple as many would think.

hughes: [00:06:51] and something i’m really digging into in my science communication comes from a phrase that you use often used in class, with the “phenomena of reality.” i i’m thinking more and more that scientists, with their hazy understandings of models, have a different understanding of the phenomena of reality. and we expect people to take the same information we have and then perceive reality the same way. i think that maybe we as scientists have an altered phenomena of reality that is somewhat shared, which is why we understand each other. i often think we also place others’ view of reality below our own and say, “well, if you don’t understand it, because our phenomena of reality is what is what is right.” even though we don’t really understand these models. right? so that’s the interesting thing about the way you’re approaching these questions, because you are doing away with a little bit of the just ask it to them. and if they don’t get it, they don’t get it. it’s really interpreting other’s view of reality in their lived experience as equally valuable, just different.

soto: [00:08:01] i stumbled into the literature of education. one of the problems that we have in trying to create an educational system that doesn’t exclude people is to not do it.

hughes: [00:08:14] not do what?

soto: [00:08:15] exclude people!

hughes: [00:08:16] oh! to not do it!

soto: [00:08:20] so this is a mechanism dbir, design based implementation researchm is mechanism to “not do it.” so in there, they identify one of the biggest hurdles. they’re kind of trying to educate people from backgrounds that are not represented in the historical institutions that were developing under the context of exclusion. when you’re trying to do that, there’s something called “epistemic injustice.” discarding somebody’s entire background without even noticing. maybe a professor that is teaching a class, i don’t know, in forestry. maybe that professor would be teaching the class and that would have like a perhaps a quechua or what they call an inca student, a student from quechua communities in maybe peru, what they call peru now. and they see reality is a deity, nature as a deity. they call it pachamama. suppose that student isn’t there and the student wants to share something, and they phrase it in the way of a deity. “oh pachamama and…” suppose they say that and immediately the professor would say, “that is a comment that is not appropriate for this class because it’s not a class on theology, it’s a class tree rings or something. and that person then perhaps feels that their entire background was discarded. it muffles their curiosity. and maybe that person was really sharing something that was profoundly insightful and appropriate, but phrased in a way that that’s the language they use. maybe that they have a relationship with the environment that is different. that little comment that might have been sort of nonchalant by the professor, trying to keep to the curricula and to the syllabus. but the one person perhaps that said that and whose background was kind of discarded in this pachamama way, that person is deeply impacted, perhaps in at least how it’s impacting the field of education from the little bit that i know. this dbir stuff, the design based implementation research, it starts from understanding that we have inherent biases and when we go and engage with people from other backgrounds other than our own. they are scientists too, in that the questions need to start being developed from what they are scientifically understanding, in their way of understanding their surroundings. maybe it could be a like an inner city, sort of low income community, or it could be a sort of a someone from a native, the original peoples of somewhere. but they have their own scientific ways, you know, and that is really cool.

hughes: [00:10:42] it really is exactly what you’re getting at in why it’s not just so easy to ask these questions in a survey.

hughes: [00:10:51] this idea about the concept of science and how we interpret it keep bouncing around between the two of us. we begin to wonder why ecoclimate teleconnections are so complex in the first place and why all science communication beyond this topic is so difficult.

hughes: [00:11:07] i think as a science communicator, i was recently talking about how most people’s view of the concept of science is different than scientists because a lot of non-scientists there, their science education stopped very early. and the science that they’re learning is thousands of years old. things that have been studied for a very long time seem settled. when in fact science is anything but settled. and there are so many things that we don’t know and so many things we are unsure about, but we end up communicating everything but our own uncertainty. i don’t know why science needs to have this facade of of truth behind it. when we are communicating to each other as scientists, we will fully admit what we don’t know.

soto: [00:11:54] that totally resonates with me because i posit that humans are very intelligent. yeah, if we approach them, maybe the folks that don’t have formal education, if we approach them like they are otherwise, they get it. they see what you were saying.

hughes: [00:12:10] what would you say is your message to others about what you’ve learned?

soto: [00:12:14] it’s a call to science, a call to mass education. and that i think, should be driven by the curiosities of the people that are going to be affected most in their way of thinking of themselves in the future, in time and space, which are the young people. all the humbleness that the folks that are maybe pontificating and to be be led by the younger generations that are that are seeing this in clearer ways.

hughes: [00:12:38] i think it’s beautiful. i think that we can continue, not even ‘continue’ because it’s almost novel… we can communicate science as unsettled and it won’t lose authority. like, i feel like maybe scientists are afraid that as soon as we lose that appeal to authority, that people won’t believe in science. but i almost think it’s the opposite, where because we seem so bulletproof, when it is called into question and proved wrong, it’s almost like the concept of science is proved wrong, as opposed to just the natural process.

soto: [00:13:12] and i suspect you’re correct about it in a very, very keen way. because, again, you know, if you’re presenting something that is right in language like, “this is right,” when it was actually-.

hughes: [00:13:25] “there’s no other interpretation.”

soto: [00:13:25] yes, that’s right. and for highly intelligent beings, the sentient beings of our species, of our organism, this is a very, very difficult moment of the most important question in human history about the anthropocene. if their perceptive of that, they catch on because they’re very smart. so i think your absolutely-  your critique is spot on. i mean, i need to reflect a lot in this conversation.

hughes: [00:13:48] curiosity is beatiful.

soto: [00:13:49] oh, yeah. it’s amazing.

hughes: [00:13:51] through the process of learning about a complex scientific topic, we learned about how we can think about science itself. we learned that everyone is a scientist and it is critical that our education systems recognize that. science isn’t useful unless it’s communicable. to underestimate the layperson’s importance in understanding would be fatal. jose and i’s combined curiosity in this impromptu conversation revealed that before we think of solutions, we must think of who is making these solutions, how we representing them, and why they would be important to those they affect. jose is a deeply curious and interesting scientist and person. we look forward to the results of his research coming out soon.

hughes: [00:14:35] jose soto’s solutions?

soto: [00:14:36] oh no, no, no.

hughes: [00:14:38] humbleness. mass education.

soto: [00:14:41] no no no solutions. curiosity. bounded curiosities.

hughes: [00:14:47] bounded curiosities.

today, we talk about a fun and tasty way to combat invasive species by putting them on the menu. invasive species are organisms introduced into an environment outside their native range that cause catastrophic economic and environmental damage. controlling invasive species can be costly and time-consuming but including them on your plate could be a viable way to manage and even reduce populations. we share a fun and simple crockpot feral pig pulled pork recipe. 

feral pig pulled pork sliders – recipe courtesy of invasivore.org

ingredients

4lb feral pig shoulder roast

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 tablespoon salt

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

½ tablespoon garlic powder

½  cup yellow mustard

brioche slider buns

water as needed

directions

1. coat pork roast in mustard to act as a binder for the dry rub.
2. combine seasonings and spoon over the pork roast, ensuring the rub adheres to the pork.
3. coat the bottom of the slow cooker with vegetable oil.
4. add pork roast to the center of the slow cooker.
5. cook low for 6-7 hours or high for 4-5 hours until meat easily falls off the bone or shreds easily if using boneless. once the internal temperature reaches 195°f-205°f it will be ready to shred and safe to eat. 
6. while still in the slow cooker, use a pair of forks to shred pork meat, removing fat as desired.
7. enjoy on a toasted bun.  optional: top with coleslaw to enjoy your sandwich “southern style!”

**note: if you notice your pork roast getting dry during the cooking process, add water until the roast is halfway submerged and maintain the water level for the rest of the cooking.**

this year’s student storytelling was – in a word – exceptional, and the competition for the title of storyfest 2022 winner was incredibly tough. our finalists covered everything from musicians and scientists to farmers and community activists, and highlighted solutions on everything from new irrigation technology to mammoth resurrection. you can see all our amazing finalists’ pieces right here on planetforward.org.

after a great deal of deliberation from our committee of judges, we are excited to share our our 2022 winners:

most compelling character

plantita power: microgreens in the district

jennifer cuyuch, george washington university

the judges say:

through her warm interviews and vibrant use of music and graphics, the judges say jennifer not only conveys the character of plantita power’s founder, steph, but also their community and spirit of care and life – plants! – that they cultivate.

most creative story

‘coastal degradation through fresh eyes’: a picture book come to life

delaney graham, suny-esf

the judges say:

a thoroughly absorbing story built around storybook characters. amka’s friend, is a puffin who is homeless because of coastal erosion. they embark on a journey of discovery and hope. the story works and the characters pop. the judges were taken by the character – and the content.

best scalable innovation

farzona comnas, george washington university

the judges say:

beautifully written and photographed, this story is personal to farzona, focusing on deserts in her native country of jordan. they’re becoming hotter and drier as a result of climate change. farzona proposes planting forests in desert. sound impossible? she cites an initiative in lebanon that has done just that. the practice is called afforestation. project drawdown rates it 15th of the most significant steps we could take to reverse global warming. the judges say, this story delivers!

best science narrative

a tale of two mountains: battling climate change and wildfires at home and abroad

ryan bieber, ithaca college

the judges say:

ryan weaves a compelling narrative built on the science. it is a tale of two sierras. in california, the sierra nevada has experienced “nine out of ten of the state’s largest wildfires … in the last decade.” in spain, monoculture replanting in the sierra nevada became a fire trap. this story is a compelling narrative of learning and loss showing distinct ways that human activity has led to devastating wildfires. 

best use of science & data

hope flows through the heart of tucson: the santa cruz river heritage project

halley hughes, the university of arizona

the judges say:

halley brings the science and data to real-world life in her story about the santa cruz river heritage project. a “trickle of water” that represents “enormous change.” the story captures the heart and soul of the living desert. as halley writes, “making tucson more drought resilient, conserving water resources, supporting critical biodiversity, connecting a city to its heritage, and educating a new generation.”

––

congratulations to our winners — and a huge thank you to all the students who entered this year. we are so proud of the stories you are telling to 2022年卡塔尔世界杯官网 !

the course, offered at chapman university, examines scientific communication across a diverse range of audiences and effective methods for strategic framing, developed by the national network for ocean and climate change interpretation (nnocci). as a student in the course, i was thrilled for the opportunity to combine my background in creative writing with my passion for the climate issue to affect change in my community. 

in partnership with tanner’s socio-ecological adaptations & climate resilience (seacr) lab, we developed materials for a communications toolkit addressing the oil spill and its connection to our reliance on fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas, which contributes to climate change. well-equipped by tanner’s immersive and collaborative approach for this course, we worked in teams to identify key audiences within orange county and researched shared, cultural values within these communities to inform purposeful language and effective metaphors. 

identifying and emphasizing a set of shared values like the protection of lands and peoples and the responsible management of resources in science communication unifies diverse communities toward a common goal. metaphors explain scientific concepts and illustrate connections between environmental issues and human action. we employed metaphors approved and tested by nnocci to shift the perception of oil spills as “accidents” to consequences of global reliance on fossil fuels. 

my classmates berkana mcdowell (‘23, environmental science & policy, peace studies, studio art) and lexi hernandez (‘22, environmental science & policy, sociology) developed an infographic advocating for indigenous knowledge and traditional management practices. they employed the metaphor, “indigenous knowledge keepers are scientists without lab coats,” to advocate for the amplification of indigenous voices. 

“there is an umbrella of knowledge systems,” wrote mcdowell and hernandez, “and we need them all.” 

i developed infographics for non-native english speakers living in orange county with eva stanton (‘22, environmental science & policy, sociology, anthropology) and veronica warner (‘23, environmental science & policy), to be distributed in the areas affected by the spill. by researching the linguistic demographics within orange county, we identified mandarin-chinese and spanish to be the most common, non-english languages spoken in the targeted area.

we experienced challenges when we attempted to choose a metaphor for our infographic, and found that most of the metaphors approved by science communicators didn’t translate into mandarin. to accommodate this, we enhanced our messaging through design elements, and compiled a masterlist of community-based solutions in a link.tree, accessible through a scannable qr code.

warner (‘23, environmental science & policy) translated our infographic into mandarin-chinese. 

“this project allowed me to thoroughly understand how oil spills impact society environmentally, financially, psychologically, and socially,” she said. “it was a great experience to work on this toolkit with my classmates because it helped me learn about how this environmental consequence impacts non-native english speakers, a group i never thought to consider for these issues prior to the toolkit.” 

the toolkit includes resources for connecting citizens with civic leaders, a timeline for fishers to determine the toxicity of fish caught in a contaminated area, and “unpacking the oil spill” guidelines for elected officials to implement regulatory action, while an infographic for lifeguards tracks the impacts of the orange county oil spill on human health, and provides guidelines for swimming and recreation. 

an activity designed for k-5 students explores the lasting effects of oil residue in our oceans, emphasizing the importance of protecting our environments. this framework highlights the efficacy of the promotion of science literacy and environmental awareness in schools. students are encouraged to fill out a take-home reflections with their parents to open dialogues within their households and communities about environmental topics. 

tanner emphasized the importance of including our positionality in all of our communications and encouraged us to ask ourselves, “am i the most trusted communicator for this issue? and if not, who is?” we acknowledge that science is not free of bias, and recognize that our communications are influenced by our own perspectives and privileges. as students in higher education, our status as trusted communicators is limited. instead, we must lift up the voices of leaders and trusted messengers embedded in impacted communities. 

the project culminated in a virtual presentation attended by local environmental nonprofit representatives, including oc coastkeeper, la nature for all, california fish and wildlife, and the pacific marine mammal center. 

“being given the opportunity to work on this oil spill communication toolkit was quite impactful. the environmental non-profits that we were able to connect with and aid during this project can take the kit we created and incorporate it into the amazing work they’re already doing in the oc area,” said christian grevin (‘22 history, political science, environmental studies), who worked on an infographic intended to guide nonprofits in connecting citizens to civic leaders.“to be able to give back to the orange county community in a way that not only highlighted environmental issues in our local ecosystems but also brought attention to the broader topic of climate change was incredibly rewarding.” 

each group presented their research and invited attendees to continue this conversation in their spheres of influence. “interfacing directly with the community in this project was such a big opportunity for the students and my research program. i think we made some lasting connections that will facilitate community-driven research in the classroom, a really exciting prospect for all of us,” reflected tanner, “this project will definitely be part of the course moving forward and we will continue to seek out relevant environmental and social issues of pressing concern.” 

we hope this project prompts further discussion and research into oil spills as consequences of human action, and communication gaps between messengers and impacted communities.  

—

orange county oil spill communications toolkit contributors: richelle tanner, amy asmussen, ruby baldwin-smith, max burrous, maya cheav, christian grevin, kate hartshorn, holland hatch, alexis hernandez, ben jensen, hilary lee, kelly ly, berkana mcdowell, eva stanton, hannah waldorf, and veronica warner. 

the internship was nothing less than incredible––i was thrust right into the swing of things as soon as my first day started. that first week, i shadowed a segment that would become the largest part of my internship, “experts on camera”––one-on-one broadcast quality interviews that we arranged between scientists and reporters in order to facilitate conversation and increase availability. we decide on an overarching theme and three subtopics for that month’s round of “eoc,” as we called it, and then go searching for experts to contact. if they accept our invitation to participate, we schedule a 90 minute window, and the reporters simply sign up for a 15 minute slot. on the day of, we jump into a set of questions we come up with for a general video that will be edited and posted on the website for those who couldn’t attend. 

my first round of “eoc,” i edited one of the three videos. the second round, i edited all three videos, as well as helped brainstorm topics and assisted in finding experts. my third round though, i did everything, from deciding on a whole topic and subtopics to finding experts, pitching them to our team, contacting them, writing all promotional material and general video questions, interviewing them, and editing the videos together. 

the biggest challenge that i experienced was that many people didn’t respond, so we always had to be prepared––backups had to be ready to go at all times. for one segment, we went from zero reporters signed up to all four slots being filled in less than 12 hours. it was nerve-wracking, but it was the most rewarding process i’ve ever experienced. i watched myself go from a shadow to successfully leading a whole “eoc” round myself. i can go look at my segments about climate change––specifically species extinction, children’s health effects of wildfire smoke, and agricultural yields––and know that i am the reason they exist and can be reported on more effectively.

over the course of the summer, i wrote six articles. for each one, i conducted interviews, researched assigned topics, and analyzed research papers. once a draft was completed, i sent it to my editor, jeremy hance, who provided me with constructive feedback that always pushed me to be a better writer. jeremy’s edits went beyond what i typically receive as a reporter, as the edits were written to help me improve as a writer, in addition to helping my article improve.

to me, this internship experience meant a place to grow and refine my scientific reporting skills. being encouraged to explore a topic in ways i find newsworthy was quite liberating. the constructive feedback genuinely improved my writing ability, while the complex topics challenged my explanatory skills.

these complex topics were the challenge of my internship experience. when you become so enveloped in a topic, you forget the baseline knowledge readers often have. explaining the relationship between rising temperatures, climate change, and a high african wild dog mortality rate becomes more difficult the more you learn. for this specific story, my editor and i went back and forth, draft after draft, attempting to adequately explain how a study approached this subject. 

a personal highlight for me was having an article republished with nowthis. when i was in high school, nowthis was a publication i came across often due to their short explanatory, and often viral videos. seeing an article i wrote for mongabay published by them was somewhat of a full-circle moment for me. the fact that another publication wanted to republish my article also meant that someone else thought my writing was at the least intriguing!

mongabay really allowed me to develop as a reporter on my own. the topics challenged me, my editors pushed me to be better, and i am finishing my internship confident in my scientific reporting ability.

to read my reporting for mongabay, click here.

keynote: climate change beyond a human lifetime

there’s a problem inherent in the way we’re processing the climate crisis: we don’t live long enough to truly feel it. national geographic explorer and documentary filmmaker john sutter has launched an unprecedented project to chronicle the future. he’s working with children around the world to tell an entirely new story about the climate crisis — one that lasts longer than we do.

keynote conversation: talking climate and weather with one of the most trusted voices in america

legendary nbc broadcaster al roker is one of the most recognized figures in american life. on nbc’s today show he communicates important weather information to a wide and diverse audience. as a storyteller on nbc’s climate unit, he dives into the story of climate change, extreme weather, and solutions for our planet. in this conversation, learn more about compelling climate communication and reaching your audience. then, we make a special announcement about our new planet forward comcast sustainability storytelling fellowship program, and share the story told by our first fellow, francesca edralin from the george washington university. edralin shares the piece she worked on about the green bronx machine.

conversation: meet the mayor of america’s hottest city

in 2020, phoenix, arizona, experienced 145 days of 100-degree weather. the mayor of phoenix, kate gallego, describes new urban technologies that the city is implementing to battle the dangers of extreme heat.

then join planet forward student contributors adora shortridge and william walker from arizona state university, and gw’s national geographic visiting professor of science communication and author of “hot, hungry planet,” lisa palmer, for a q&a about their work looking into feasible and equitable heat-preparedness strategies for some of our most vulnerable citizens.

institutional impact: moving away from single-use plastics

george washington university recently announced it will phase out single-use plastics on campus. gw president thomas leblanc explains why, how, and what it means.

game time! let’s talk storyfest

students published their stories on planetforward.org all year — next we put their stories front and center with a panel of science and media experts. asu global futures laboratory’s steven beschloss, pbs (wnet) executive producer eugenia harvey, project drawdown’s matt scott, and gw professor dr. tara scully join us to showcase some of the exceptional storyfest entries for 2021. then, frank sesno revealed the six grand prize winners, each of whom will receive $500 and have 50 trees planted in their names in a national forest courtesy of our friends at one tree planted.

keynote conversation: meet the new epa administrator michael s. regan

finally, we capped our event with a thoughtful and inspiring discussion with the new epa administrator michael regan — the first black man and the first graduate of a historically black college and university to lead the epa in its 50-year history. regan said he will bring science into every decision, coordinate across government, work with states and localities — and made clear that environmental justice will be at the center of his mission.

please watch and listen, and be inspired. as regan said to us — it’s not too late. as humans, we are innovative. we are resilient. and we can do this — together.

thank you again for joining us at the 2021 planet forward virtual summit. until next year, we look forward to seeing you online, and let’s keep doing our part to 2022年卡塔尔世界杯官网 .

—

see the full summit playlist on youtube.